Mick Hartley

On the killing of the two Israeli embassy workers in Washington:

Israeli minister for diaspora affairs, Amichai Chikli, has issued a statement condemning the leaders of the UK, France and Canada, accusing them of having "emboldened the forces of terror".

On Tuesday, Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney released a joint statement, describing Israel's new Gaza offensive as "wholly disproportionate" and calling for restrictions on humanitarian aid to be lifted, warning of "concrete actions" if not.

In response to the shooting in Washington DC, Chikli points out that the suspect shouted "Free Palestine". He says those words have "become a banner not for peace but for hatred" and are being used to demonise Israel, accusing those saying it of "echoing antisemitism".

"We must also hold to account the irresponsible leaders in the West who give backing to this hatred – whether through appeasement, double standards, or silence," he says, calling out the three leaders who he claims "have all, in different ways, emboldened the forces of terror through their failure to draw moral red lines".

"This cowardice has a price – and that price is paid in Jewish blood," Chikli says.

Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were in their late twenties, just beginning their lives.

But they were shot. Murdered for working at the Israeli Embassy.

For over a year, the world has been flooded with blood libels, conspiracy theories, and a growing wave of antisemitic… pic.twitter.com/vc4DJM9rUR

— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) May 22, 2025

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

"For over a year, the world has been flooded with blood libels, conspiracy theories, and a growing wave of antisemitic hate disguised as activism.

"Words became weapons. Lies became justifications. And somewhere along the way, murdering young Israeli diplomats began to look, to some, like justice.

"Did it help a single Palestinian?
"Did it bring peace, dignity, or hope to anyone?

"May their memories be a blessing 💔"

These men seem very pleased with themselves – and no wonder. They've just won medals in the women's long jump.

From Reduxx:

A trans-identified male has gone viral after winning a women’s longsword medal on Sunday in a tournament that had multiple male participants competing against females in the women’s category….

During an event titled the “Women’s+ Steel Longsword,” Beatrice, formerly Brice, Lostracco walked away with the gold, and boasted of his win on X in a celebratory post. His post immediately gained viral attention, with many expressing outrage at Lostracco for taking a medal intended for women.

Lostracco fought back accusations that he stole the title from a woman in a sarcastic follow-up post, writing: “at great cost to myself and my personal relationships, I changed my gender to participate in women’s events for a niche combat sport. I’ve been taking estrogen for 2 years so I could get a little metal circle. They’re just letting me get away with it.”

However, Lostracco was not the only trans-identified male in the event, revealing that he competed against both “cis women and trans women” in the longsword competition. In the published results on the Hema Scorecard website, six other “women” are listed, some of whom are biological males.

Fox Graves, formerly known as Michael, placed third in the event. Graves appears to have started identifying as a woman very recently, while the fifth-placed competitor, Mikela Bonner, is another openly trans-identified male.

Could they have a special competition just for trans women? Well no – that would take away all the fun of beating real women – and the fig-leaf that these men come up with about validating their identity.

I was aware that Kazakhstan was where the Soviets did their nuclear tests, but not of the grim and still ongoing aftermath. From the Telegraph – Atomic bombs destroyed their lives – now they want Russia to pay:

Sixty years ago a nuclear bomb ten times more powerful than the one that destroyed Hiroshima exploded at the bottom of a 178-metre shaft in this remote (but not unpopulated) corner of Kazakhstan.

The blast excavated a basin a quarter of a mile wide and several hundred feet deep, sending up a plume of pulverised rock and radioactive material that was detected as far away as Japan.

It was not a one off. The hydrogen bomb was one of 456 nuclear weapons detonated by the Soviet Union at the Semipalatinsk Test Site, a 7,000 square mile swathe of steppe known as the Polygon.

The tests started in 1949 and continued right up until 1989 and the fall of the Berlin wall. They account for a quarter of all the nuclear explosions in history, creating an ongoing health crisis of a scale and nature that is hard to fathom.

The Kazakh authorities estimate that one-and-a-half million people living in nearby cities, towns and villages were exposed to the residual fallout.

The region has elevated rates of cancer, heart disease, birth defects and fertility problems – all linked to the tests. Suicides are common and the area’s graveyards are filled with people who died young.

But as well as sickening those who were directly exposed, the fallout has worked its way into the population's DNA, leading to mutations that have been passed down through the generations.

It's a long article, with, as you'd expect, plenty of personal testimony of suffering, high cancer rates, and birth defects.

“The nuclear weapons tests were undertaken in the knowledge that the local ethnic Kazakhs could be harmed or even gradually eradicated,” said Dr Alexis-Martin.

“The lack of impetus and action across the decades by successive Soviet, Russian, and Kazakhstan governments and the global community amounts to ‘slow genocide’ – this arises when an ethnic or cultural group is gradually and systematically destroyed due to cumulative and sustained harm over time.”

I imagine there's zero chance of Putin being moved by a sense of Russia's historic responsibility, but that's no reason not to publicise these Soviet crimes.

From the Daily NK:

North Korean authorities have begun collecting citizen feedback regarding the country’s decision to join Russia’s war against Ukraine.

“The Sariwon police department has instructed neighborhood offices throughout the city to have locals submit essays detailing their thoughts and feelings about our entrance into the war,” a source in North Hwanghae province told Daily NK recently….

These neighborhood watch unit leaders received explicit instructions not to provide citizens with any guidance on what to write, as the essays are meant to capture genuine opinions and reactions.

“The police have specified that people should share their honest feelings in essays ranging from one to three pages, with an additional single-page essay required from each family,” the source explained. “The family essay must be signed not only by the household head but by all adult family members officially registered at that residence. Police have instructed neighborhood watch unit leaders to communicate only these requirements without making any further remarks.

“The primary goal is to understand how families feel about their sons being sent to the battlefield,” the source continued. “The police explained that the party needs citizens to express their candid feedback (about the Ukraine war) to provide foundational data for shaping future ideological policies for provincial residents.”

Hmm. You'd have to be exceptionally foolhardy, or naive – or stupid – to express anything but the highest praise for our brave boys fighting for the glory of the motherland and its heroic leader Kim Jong-un. Good way of weeding out the troublemakers, though.

How the blood libel works: a thread.

Yesterday we saw how the blood libel works like lightening in the social media age, fed by corrupt organisations, amplified by politicians and reported on by credulous reporters.
The lie started with the UN’s emergency coordinator Tom… pic.twitter.com/19MiYH9ScF

— Nicole Lampert (@nicolelampert) May 21, 2025

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Thread:

It was reported all over the online media all over the world, politicians made videos about it, it was repeated in the House of Commons. It’s in this morning’s newspapers. Because he said it and he’s from the UN. But it was a lie akin to the ‘45 minutes’ dodgy dossier – and just as dangerous. 2/4

It appears this figure was plucked from a report which said there would be 14,000 cases of several malnutrition in young children within the next year if the way the food is distributed in Gaza is not improved. Very different. But the lie worked. 3/4

The blood libel is a medieval conspiracy the Jews killed gentile children. Just like this modern iteration, it originated in Britain. It resulted in the murder of Jews and their eventual expulsion from England.

(As an addendum I would add I am against the siege and welcome the fact that aid trucks are going back in even though they are feeding the Hamas machine.) 4/4

Added, from the JC:

A widely reported claim that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die within 48 hours has been corrected by the UN, which says the figure refers to potential deaths over the next year.

The statement, aired on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and repeated across national media and in Parliament, was later clarified by the BBC as a misrepresentation of a humanitarian report projecting malnutrition cases in children aged six month to five years over a 12-month period.

The UN's humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher claimed on Monday morning that thousands of babies could die in Gaza in the subsequent two days if Israel did not immediately let aid in, apparently based on a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) Partnership.

Speaking to Today, Fletcher said: "There are 14,000 babies that will die in the next 48 hours unless we can reach them."

He said there were "strong teams on the ground" operating in medical centres and schools – but did not provide further details.

Five trucks entered the strip on Monday, which Fletcher described as "a drop in the ocean." He said the aid had yet to reach civilians.

However, a look at the IPC report reveals that the figure refers to the number of children at risk of “severe malnutrition” by March next year, rather than by the end of the week. The number is a projection and would not take into account any increase in the supply of aid between now and then.

Later the same day, buried in a story about how aid in Gaza has yet to reach the population, BBC News issued a correction to Fletcher’s claim. A separate UN official also declined to repeat the claim and made the correction in a press briefing….

On Tuesday, around 93 trucks carrying aid, including flour, baby food, medical equipment and pharmaceutical drugs, were allowed to enter the Strip.

The Netanyahu government had said its blockade was aimed at preventing Hamas terrorists from seizing and reselling aid. It has denied claims that there is a shortage of food in Gaza and insisted that instances of starvation are caused by Hamas withholding supplies from the civilian population.

Lesson one: don't trust the UN, especially on Israel.

Lesson two: any lie which paints Israel in as bad a light as possible will be seized on and amplified across the media. Any later corrections will be muttered quietly and discreetly.

Is Sonia Sodha a Times writer now? She's now followed Suzanne Moore and Hadley Freeman out of the the Guardian/Observer stable, where her gender-critical views were doubtless unwelcome.

Whatever, here she is in today's Times – Unions and bosses are flouting trans ruling. 

A few weeks on, it’s becoming clear that despite the exceptional clarity of a judgment handed down by the highest court in the land, implementing it is a different matter. The rule of law, it seems, depends on most people choosing to follow it.

Some organisations, like Britain’s biggest union, are brazenly flouting it. Unison is allowing a male member who identifies as female to stand for election for its national council positions reserved for women. Last year its president accused a group of nurses from Darlington of “anti-trans bigotry” for standing up for their right to female-only changing rooms at work.

It’s not just Unison: the National Education Union has called on employers — presumably including schools — to support the rights of people to “use gendered facilities which match gender identities”, which would be unlawful. A train company, Southeastern, has wrongly told employees the ruling does not stop them using facilities designated for those of the opposite sex. Police forces still have policies allowing male officers who identify as female to carry out strip searches on female detainees. Even leading law firms have sent out analysis that badly misrepresents the law.

Moreover, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has been vilified for simply setting out some of the consequences of the ruling in an interim update. It has just published a revised draft of its statutory code on equalities law that will attract similarly unfair cries of bogeyman. What’s obvious from this soup of legal misinformation is that women are going to have to continue crowdfunding for expensive legal action to enforce their rights in the face of institutions hostile to the judgment. At least the more legal wins they clock up, the more likely it is that insurers will insist on organisations following the law or invalidating their liability policies.

Other organisations are recognising the ruling, but running scared of its consequences. Labour’s national executive committee this week discussed a paper which made clear that to comply with the law, the party’s all-women shortlists and women’s conference must be female-only. So far, so good. But it also proposed indefinitely “postponing” this September’s women’s conference. The gathering would undoubtedly be a flashpoint for unhappy activists were it to go ahead, but surely the answer is not to deny female delegates their annual opportunity to meet and submit motions to the main conference?

This is the less obvious risk: that some leaders and employers respond not by disregarding the law but by taking away provision for women because they feel unable to deal with its practicalities. Unable, for example, to have conversations with employees that firmly but kindly set out why the women’s changing rooms are female-only, and that there is a separate gender-neutral space for male employees who don’t want to get changed in the men’s. Or that you are of course free to hold your own personal belief that people can identify into the opposite sex, but you can’t impose it on others.

This requires leadership, the missing piece of the puzzle. Many bosses seem to be hoping they can contract it out, or blame what they’re mandated to do on the nasty judges or the horrible EHRC….

That of course includes Keir Starmer, yet to properly engage with the consequences of the judgment, and for whom the women’s conference row is but a taste of what’s to come. That EHRC draft statutory code will be laid before parliament in the coming months and some recalcitrant Labour MPs will be gunning for it. At that point, he will have no choice but to come out from behind the cover of the courts and speak up for a law that was, after all, passed by a Labour government.

Ah yes. Leadership. From Starmer. Hmm. We shall see.

Still with North Korea – from Yonhap News:

North Korea has removed "unification" from the name of a building on the North's side of the truce village of Panmunjom, Seoul's unification ministry said Monday, as Pyongyang has stepped up its campaign to redefine relations with Seoul as hostile.

A Daily NK commentary:

North Korea’s removal of the word “unification” from its Panmunjom building represents far more than a simple name change. By renaming the “Unification Pavilion” to the neutral “Panmun Hall,” Pyongyang has symbolically abandoned the shared Korean dream of eventual reunification. This deliberate erasure, completed in stages over the past year, is part of a systematic campaign that extends beyond physical landmarks to educational materials, with North Korean authorities ordering teachers to literally cross out words like “reunification,” “reconciliation,” and “fellow countrymen” from existing textbooks with pens and pencils.

The modification aligns with Kim Jong-un’s January speech to the Supreme People’s Assembly demanding the “complete elimination” of unification terminology from the national history. This represents a calculated strategy to eliminate all references to reconciliation from North Korean policy and consciousness. The urgency of this ideological shift is evident in the stopgap measures implemented—teachers must spend five minutes before each class crossing out banned phrases and explaining the “correct understanding” of party policies to students. One elementary school teacher in Uiju was fired for failing to implement these orders, demonstrating the regime’s zero-tolerance approach to ideological compliance. Even songs like “Reunification, May You Come Soon” are now forbidden in classrooms….

Seoul must recognize these changes as part of a broader, deliberate strategy by Pyongyang to permanently redefine the Korean peninsula as two hostile states rather than one temporarily divided nation. The simultaneous alteration of physical spaces and educational content demonstrates the comprehensive nature of this policy shift. This transformation demands a clear-eyed reassessment of South Korea’s unification policies and security posture, acknowledging that the path to peaceful reconciliation has grown significantly more challenging as North Korea systematically dismantles both physical connections and linguistic references to a shared Korean future.

I've documented this before. Here, for instance, on the occasion of the demolition of North Korea's Arch of Reunification in Pyongyang last April:

For Great Leader Kim Il Sung reunification would have involved the triumphant North, a beacon of socialist success, taking in the hopelessly corrupt and decadent South. As it's turned out the South's been resurgent, an economic and cultural powerhouse, while the North's turned into a starvation-ridden dystopian basket case. The only conceivable reunification now would follow the collapse of the Kim dynasty, with the South trying to pick up the pieces – at huge cost.

From North Korea's official point of view, then, reunification has now to be truly dead and buried.

We've seen East and West Germany reunite; we've seen North and South Vietnam reunite. This, though, may well be a step too far. Reunification is officially dead in North Korea, and though the Daily NK commentary assumes that the South must still be striving for one unified country, my feeling is that for the majority of South Koreans this is no longer the case. They have their own problems, and really, after over 75 years, seem to have little enthusiasm for rescuing their fellow Koreans, at enormous expense, from the hell they've built for themselves.

Local hospitals in North Korea have no drugs beyond herbal medicines, and people only go there to get medical certificates to avoid work. “There are no naive people here who go to hospitals expecting treatment". So Pyongyang is promoting a "self-reliance" approach to medical care: hospitals have to produce their own medicines, and the people have to cure themselves. 

Local hospitals across North Korea are actively manufacturing their own medicines following the regime’s “self-reliance” directive.

According to a Daily NK source in North Pyongan province recently, county hospitals in areas including Yomju and Taechon have begun prescribing self-produced traditional medicines to patients this year. These include “Youngsinhwan” made from wild ginseng, “Danggangssughwan,” remedies for arthritis made from aralia root, and antibiotics derived from honeysuckle.

These measures aim to provide at least some medication to patients amid shortages of essential drugs like antibiotics and painkillers….

“There are no naive people here who go to hospitals expecting treatment,” the source said. “Many visit hospitals to get medical certificates to avoid work. Even those who are genuinely sick have come to accept receiving only prescriptions without actual medicine.”

Traditional medicines may vary though:

County hospitals throughout the province are engaging in self-reliance through the production of Korean traditional medicines, with Youngsinhwan being the most commonly manufactured.

“Youngsinhwan is everywhere these days, but each hospital adds different ingredients in different amounts, so the taste and hardness vary,” the source explained. “Since the effectiveness hasn’t been verified, people don’t make judgements about whether it works but rather comment on which hospital’s version tastes sweeter or which one is just bitter.”

Never mind the effectiveness, check out the taste.

Melanie Phillips in the Times – Team Trump risks fatally misunderstanding Iran:

His Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said last week: “If Trump can unite Iran with the Arab nations, the Middle East’s economy could surpass the EU.” What Witkoff described as “dysfunctional” Europe can apparently be junked. So much for the West, that community of shared historic values that’s been the crucible of civilisation itself. So much for Iran’s multi-front war to destroy Israel and the West. All that matters, apparently, is money.

Witkoff seems to be astoundingly ignorant and naive about the tyrants with whom he is negotiating. For decades the Iranian regime, whose agenda is non-negotiable, has lied about its nuclear weapons programme and played the Americans for suckers. Trump has declared that if the regime doesn’t destroy its entire nuclear programme, he’ll do it himself. Yet Israel, designated by Iran for genocide, is now wondering whether Trump will abandon the Jewish state. For he’s been purring over the Tehran regime as “very intelligent” and said negotiations are going “very well”.

The irony is that this places Trump in the same position as his political foes. The left insist that universal self-interest means every conflict is amenable to negotiated compromise. Trump believes universal self-interest means every conflict is a potential deal. Neither can therefore get their heads round the fanatical religious war being waged against America and western civilisation. It’s not so much isolationism as the suicidal fantasy of universal reason and greed that threatens the eclipse of the West.

For those who viewed Trump as, despite his obvious faults, at least a welcome change from the naivety of Obama and Biden when it comes to Iran and the Middle East, this is all a bit alarming. He and his team of incompetents appear to be following the Democrats' delusional belief that Iran is amenable to reason and compromise, when it could hardly be more obvious that in reality it's a theocratic state beyond argument, whose main foreign policy goal is the destruction of Israel. 

The same, it seems to me, applies to the whole gender issue. Trump, or more likely his advisors, pushed the gender thing in the election, as it could hardly be more obvious that this was a subject – the subject – where Americans in general were opposed to the whole uber-woke men-in-women's-sport, pronouns in the bio, cult nonsense. It may have played a major part in the Trump victory. But he doesn't actually care about any of that. He doesn't do principles – only deals and money. Plus he's getting more rambling and delusional by the day. I get the feeling the whole gender debate in America is going to be forgotten or pushed to the side now, and it'll continue same as before – men winning in women's sport, kids getting "gender-affirmative" care, the whole deal. Because, as I say, Trump and co. don't really care. It was useful for getting into power…but not any more.

That Brighton women's group – the one whose meeting was maliciously disrupted when trans activist Sarah Savage set off a fire alarm – have now issued a statement:

We are delighted to report that the event did (eventually) go ahead as planned and was a great success. We are liaising with the police and understand that a criminal investigation is ongoing. 

Sisters Salon is an established women’s group in Brighton and our meeting last Saturday was one part of a consultation seeking women’s views on the development of an NHS Women’s Health Hub for Brighton & Hove.

This is an important initiative. We know women are more likely than men to experience certain physical and mental health conditions, face barriers in accessing quality healthcare and experience poorer outcomes in a range of conditions such as heart attacks. Statistics from the Department of Health and Social Care state that 84% of women do not feel that they are listened to by healthcare professionals. 

And so, we are proud to have received funding from NHS Sussex Integrated Care Board to ensure the voices of local women are included in their consultation. 47 women registered for our event and we were able to get a range of perspectives on what a Women’s Health Hub should offer. 

However, Sarah Savage (organiser of Trans Pride in Brighton) intentionally set off a fire alarm in an attempt to disrupt us and stop our health consultation. This intolerant targeting was distressing and disruptive for Sisters Salon attendees, the children using our creche, library staff and the hundreds of library users who were evacuated, including many young people studying for upcoming GCSEs and A Levels.

In an instagram video, Savage falsely claims that Sisters Salon is a ‘notorious hate group’. This is untrue, upsetting and libellous and only serves to cause unhelpful division within the local community. You can read our mythbusters here….

We believe protests about women holding single-sex events are rooted in misogyny and have no place in our diverse city. The single-sex nature of our meetings is legitimate and in line with equality law. At a meeting on women’s health, a single sex space is especially important as it empowers women to speak freely about our own health issues and focus specifically on our own needs. 

Maliciously setting off a fire alarm goes beyond a simple protest – it is unduly provocative, stops women from exercising their Article Eleven right to freedom of assembly. This, together with subsequent inflammatory statements on social media, and misogynistic slurs, has whipped up hostility and misplaced fear about our group. It has resulted in graphic and violent threats towards us.

The gross smug entitlement and misogyny of that preening idiot's ridiculous justification for his fire alarm prank really sums up the trans movement. It should get as much publicity as possible – and then compared to this eminently sane and reasonable response. We see what's going on here.